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Across: where an episode appears in the book. Down: the setting in which it takes place. The Bhāgavatam often tells of earlier ages from inside a later conversation.
Sanandana Kumāra The sages of Janaloka
Study note: A richly nested account carries a question about ultimate reality through Nārāyaṇa Ṛṣi, Nārada, Sanandana and the personified Vedas.
Where this voice begins
“Śrī Sanandana replied: After the Supreme Lord withdrew the universe He had previously created, He lay for some time as if asleep, and all His energies rested dormant within Him.”
nestedcosmologyrevelation
Same setting
The setting bands are qualitative study aids, not dates. Several events belong to different cosmic cycles and cannot sit on one human timeline.
The frames come from where the translation itself says who is speaking (“Śukadeva Gosvāmī said …”). Their exact start and end verses, the episode labels and the setting bands are study aids, not words of the scripture; Śrīla Prabhupāda's purport on each verse is always the final word.